A nyone who has lived under the control of an abusive partner or parent knows that the problem is not just what’s prohibited. It’s what you’re unsure is prohibited. The prospect of punishment instills fear.
Vagueness about what will be punished promotes caution. Just in case, the teenager doesn’t hang out with certain friends. The teacher deletes the controversial book from the curriculum.
The doctor decides not to perform an abortion when the patient’s health or life is at risk, but, maybe, not imminently so. This is what is happening across the 21 states that have banned abortion in all but the direst of circumstances. It’s what happened to Amanda Zurawski, an Austin, Texas , resident who learned at 18 weeks’ gestation that her cervix was prematurely dilated, spelling certain death for her fetus, already named Willow, and posing grave threat to her own health.
But because there was still fetal cardiac activity, the doctors sent Zurawski home to get sick enough to qualify for an abortion under Texas’s ban. The law permits the procedure only when a patient would otherwise lose “major bodily function” or die. It doesn’t say when that might be.
And it makes no allowance for a fatal fetal anomaly. Zurawski went into sepsis – full-body infection – spent three days in the ICU, and survived, but it’s unlikely that her fertility did. Louisiana descends into dystopia with historic law on abortion pills | Arwa Mahdawi Read more In Zurawksi v Texas (2023), t.
